Forbes.com's Business Books Of The Year

Forbes.com's top two business books of the year both are about U.S. Treasury secretaries who worked for presidents named George. Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton is the biography of the nation's first finance chief, who worked for the first president--George Washington--and had significant influence. Ron Suskind's The Price of Loyalty tells the story of Paul O'Neill, who worked for President George W. Bush and was forced out of office after his advice was ignored.

These two books, tied for first place, are the clear leaders in our Business Books of the Year rankings. Given that Robert Rubin's In an Uncertain World was one of last year's well-received business books, it seems that finance ministers are on a literary hot streak.

Our 2004 list also features three books grounded in economics. The Wisdom of Crowds by journalist James Surowiecki, a study of how the masses often outwit the experts, ranks third. The Paradox of Choice by Swarthmore College professor Barry Schwartz, which concludes that too much choice actually decreases happiness, is in sixth place, followed by The Coming Generational Storm by Boston University economics professor Laurence Kotlikoff and financial writer Scott Burns, which predicts a demographic crisis caused by the imminent retirement of the baby boom generation.

To compile our list, we sought nominations from authors, business professors, editors, agents and publishing executives, as well as from Forbes writers and editors. We assessed these titles by press mentions, Google hits and the number and quality of reviews they received. By averaging the individual rankings, we identified our top ten.

The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It, by Marcia Angell, is the sole business narrative on the list. Angell, a former editor in chief of The New England Journal of Medicine, takes Big Pharma to task for overstating its contributions to research and for rigging drug trials to make products appear better than they are. Her book is ranked fourth.

Three self-help books make the list. Multimedia star Donald Trump, who also dabbles in real estate, checks in at fifth place with his on-the-nose-title Trump: How to Get Rich, written with Meredith McIver. Trump tells you how to do it like the Donald, and millions seem eager to try. More pedestrian advice is offered by veteran get-rich guru David Bach. His well-received The Automatic Millionaire makes our list at No. 9. The other advice title is Lois Frankel's Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office. Frankel, whose book ranks eighth, offers a primer on how women can stop acting like girls in order to get their careers on track.

Filling out the list is Free Prize Inside! by Seth Godin, who offers a "manifesto" of innovative marketing techniques. Taking his own lesson to heart, the book was sold inside a cereal box, and wound up as the only marketing text to make our list.